Ugh. The "metro" header is a hot mess. The layout's fine. But you'll notice in actual "metro" the tiles are single color geometry. Instead here we get abstract visual noise under headlines? Some of which is text? [Eyes bleeding]

Well I like this approach to grouping stories in a special coverage series. The billboard effect establishes a relationship between the components and serves to isolate them somewhat from the regularly-scheduled content below. Especially if you use it sparingly, the billboard layout immediately signals "special content."

I'm concerned that updates might get lost in the shuffle of boxes. I noticed just now that the items had shifted, but I didn't remember what they had been before. Either the boxes shifted shape, which seems "puzzling" (har), or the boxes kept their shape and changed their content, in which case the new material seems camouflaged.

With the normal layout, I'm generally confident that the newest feature is big box top-right, the newest report is headline/deck/teaser top-left, etc. I suppose I could be trained to read a boxy billboard the same way, but I'm suddenly aware that I never consciously established the rules for the old layout until now, and yet somehow I had internalized them.

I think it's okayish for special events, but maybe a bit all-consuming/overwhelming even then. Other stories are pushed so far down the page that some visitors might not see them. Have you noted fewer clicks on Non-Windows 8 articles since the tiles went up? Regulars will scroll down and seek out other content, but new visitors might find it off-putting and bail.

Also, as I think I noted in the deep dive article comments, could the orange, lower-right tile (Ars + Windows_8_logo) link to a 'windows 8' tag search instead of to the deep dive article? You have a lot of coverage, current and prior, that isn't carried there, nor in the tiles at the top of the FP. By next week, you'll probably have quite a few articles that are just sort of ... lost.

TL;DR: I like it, if it's temporary, but wonder if it's hurting you on other fronts.

Oh, that's the normal look, spanning all 3 columns was a reference to the feature area going from the left side where the reports are to the right. So the stories under the feature all the way across in other words.

I loved the "Modern UI" headline theme/style that were used during the run of Windows 8 coverage. I was sad enough when I saw Ars no longer had it this morning that I thought I'd check the feedback forum and sure enough I wasn't alone.

I think I liked it better because it seemed to show more articles at a glance without scrolling down then the standard view (I use regular three-column layout). Or perhaps it was just the style with the tiles, I think it looked sharp, because most had picture backgrounds or some colur to offer some contrast.

That look with the text overlaying the feature image is how we used to do our normal feature area when we launched this redesign. We A/B tested it against the current layout, with the text under it, and the current one won.

Oh, that's the normal look, spanning all 3 columns was a reference to the feature area going from the left side where the reports are to the right. So the stories under the feature all the way across in other words.

Thanks, I should have been more accurate with my description.

I'm pretty sure I'd like the "Modern" feature area regardless of whether or not the stories all shared a theme . . . I saw an unrelated article sneak into the top right spot of the feature area toward the end of the experiment. It caught me a bit off guard because I was still expecting the common theme and my eyes had gotten used to skimming past the feature area because of my lack of interest in most of the Windows 8 coverage (due to lack of interest in Windows 8 in general.)

When I look at a webpage, my eyes start in the top left and drift down diagonally(ish) toward the bottom right. With the Ars site, I see the logo first, then the first article my eyes land on is at the top of the In-Depth section. My eyes are then attracted right to the larger feature story, causing competition between the two visually. I think that's the reason I have such a hard time with the current layout - I expect the most important stuff to be top-left or top-center and I find myself having to actively think about how to visually navigate the page.

For what its worth. In any case, I appreciate the fact that you're listening!

I like the format, but, if it's only going to display featured articles (like it did for the Windows launch), it's not going to be that useful outside of high-volume periods (during the flood of articles right after a product launch, for example). IIRC, Ars tries to push out a featured article about every two days (or longer, every once in a while; Lee's Mission Control Center article stayed at the top for three days). With the five-panel layout used during the Win8 launch, that means featured articles will stay up at the top of the page for over a week, and more timely news updates (the current left and center columns) get pushed below the fold.

Some combination of featured articles and regular news stuff might be good up there... but how do you decide what to put up there? The five most recent articles would mean that nothing would stay up there for long (except the last five articles of the day)... "Most Popular" articles is a meaningless metric (and things would jump around).

Well I like this approach to grouping stories in a special coverage series. The billboard effect establishes a relationship between the components and serves to isolate them somewhat from the regularly-scheduled content below. Especially if you use it sparingly, the billboard layout immediately signals "special content."

I'm concerned that updates might get lost in the shuffle of boxes. I noticed just now that the items had shifted, but I didn't remember what they had been before. Either the boxes shifted shape, which seems "puzzling" (har), or theboxes kept their shape and changed their content, in which case the new material seems camouflaged.

With the normal layout, I'm generally confident that the newest feature is big box top-right, the newest report is headline/deck/teaser top-left, etc. I suppose I could be trained to read a boxy billboard the same way, but I'm suddenly aware that I never consciously established the rules for the old layout until now, and yet somehow I had internalized them.